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OneTrikPony
So I'm building a street sam elf I like to call Twinkie.

Twinkie goes to the cyber doc and has him install some bioware
Synaptic booster #1 for .5 essence
Adrenaline Pump #2 for 1.5 essence
Ortho Skin #2 for .5 essence
Bone dencity augmentation #2 for .6 essence
He now has 3.1 essence points of bioware.

So later Twinkie decides that Orks beat up on him too much. He wants 3 ponts of muscle replacemnt.
muscle replacement #3 would cost 3 points of essence but 3 is less than 3.1 so it only costs him 1.5 points of essence

Then Twinkie want's to be faster so he gets some reaction enhancers
Reactionn enhancers #3 would be .9 essence but 1.5 + .9 are still less than 3.1 so the reaction enhancers only cost .45

Now he has .95 essence left. He's lost 3.1 essence to bioware and 1.95 essence to cyber.

Twinky strikes it rich and blows his cred on more upgrades
eyes #3 and ears #3 for .8 essence but he has bioware so that cost is halved make it .2 essence each so:
Eyes and ears #3 for .4 essence
An ultrasound sensor for .3 ÷ 2 = .15 essence
Then he gets a datajack for .1 ÷ 2 = .05 essence
He goes under the knife for another .6 points of essence in cyber leaving him with an essence rating of .35

My question: Can Twinky realy have 3.1 essence points of bioware and 5.1 points of cyber?
Thanee
You look at the total of each, then pick the smaller one and divide that by two, then add the two numbers. It doesn't matter, which of the totals was halved before, when a change in implants occurs, you always look at the full totals again.

3.1 and 5.1 means the 3.1 gets halved. So 5.1 + 3.1 / 2 = 6.65 ---> no good idea. wink.gif

The error you did is, that you looked at the halved total of the cyber (3.0 / 2) after the Muscle Replacement got installed, instead of the full total (3.0 + 0.9 for the Reaction Enhancer is more than the 3.1 in bioware, so that gets applied at half value now, and the cyber is counted fully now), but the numbers don't change, Muscle Replacement still costs 3.0 Essence (even though it was only applied at half value to calculate your Essence Attribute). You always look at the full total, the halved values only get used, when you actually calculate your total Essence Loss. Always start at the base, when you calculate Essence.

After the Reaction Enhancers, he would have an Essence Loss of 3.9 + 3.1 / 2 = 5.45, and thus an Essence of 0.55 left.

Bye
Thanee
OneTrikPony
at what point does my cyber essence cost exceed 3.1?
Thanee
Just edited that part in, in the meantime. Hope it's clear now. smile.gif

Bye
Thanee
OneTrikPony
No I understood what you were saying before you edited your post. My issue is that I was lead to believe that You could have amounts of ware installed in SR4 similar to what you could have in SR3. In 3 you could have 5.9 points of cyberware and 3.1 points of bioware because bioware took up BioIndex. Strict reading of the SR4 rule indicates that you can't get that much ware anymore.

In the FAQ threadFrankTrollman said:
QUOTE
Bio Index is gone. Bioware costs Essence, but the new Essence calculations and costs are a lot more generous - so players can have about the same (or more) ware, but there are less ware subsystems to keep track of.


later in that thread I complained that bioware cost essence. He told me my argument was ingenuous because essence for either cyber or bio would be halved which I took to mean that 9 = 9. Apparently you just can't have 6 and 3 anymore.

What am I missing?
Fortune
Technically, Twinkie could have 4 full points of either Cyber or Bioware, and also have 3.999 points of the other (calculated at 1.9999).

edit: The old Bio-Index (and hence the additional +3 to which you are refering) is gone in SR4. You can only have up to your Essence (or technically just under) in implants of any kind. The actual Essence cost for type of implant with the lower total Essense cost is halved when calculating the final total Essense loss.
Thanee
QUOTE (OneTrikPony @ Dec 24 2006, 12:22 PM)
later in that thread I complained that bioware cost essence. He told me my argument was ingenuous because essence for either cyber or bio would be halved which I took to mean that 9 = 9. Apparently you just can't have 6 and 3 anymore.

What am I missing?

I would say, that you got it right. You cannot have as much as you had before.

If you disregard Bio-Index, you can now have more ware for your 6 points of Essence, but you won't get as much as you could in SR2-3.

Bye
Thanee
toturi
QUOTE (OneTrikPony @ Dec 24 2006, 07:22 PM)
He told me my argument was ingenuous because essence for either cyber or bio would be halved which I took to mean that 9 = 9. Apparently you just can't have 6 and 3 anymore.

What am I missing?

You are not missing anything. You simply cannot have as much enhancements as before. While bioware costs essense, the costs of enhancements are halved for the bio/cyber whichever is lower. But both enahcement types cost essense and you cannot have cyber 6, bio 3 anymore.
Fortune
With judicious choices, you can cram quite a bit in with this rule.

* .66 Essence worth of one and .659 of the other only amounts to a total loss of 1 Essence point.

* 1.33 Essence worth of one and 1.3299 of the other only amounts to a total loss of 2 Essence points.

* 2 Essence worth of one and 1.999 of the other only amounts to a total loss of 3 Essence points.

* 2.66 Essence worth of one and 2.6599 of the other only amounts to a total loss of 4 Essence points.

* 3.33 Essence worth of one and 3.3299 of the other only amounts to a total loss of 5 Essence points.

* And pretty much the maximum is as I listed earlier ... 4 Essence worth of one and 3.999 of the other only amounts to a total loss of just under 6 Essence points.
OneTrikPony
Saying that 7.99 points of implants is "still alot of implants" doesn't really molify my burgeoning hatred of 4th eddition. 7.99 is not the 9.0 points that I used to play with. I've been up for a couple of days now and I'm about to go on a screaming rant like I did in the FAQ thread. Don't worry dear moderators I have a new anger management system.

Before I go kick my dog across the yard Can I suggest that the developers use some space in Augmentation to FIX THIS CRAP!

BRB
Dissonance
On the plus side, you no longer have to deal with the madness that is dealing with the BI system, not to mention stress, or the insanely retarded surgery rules, in which a decent plan for even cheap cyberwear costs enough to retire on.
Fortune
QUOTE (OneTrikPony @ Dec 25 2006, 12:12 AM)
Before I go kick my dog across the yard Can I suggest that the developers use some space in Augmentation to FIX THIS CRAP!

There's no need to fix the crap, as you say. While it might be true that in SR4 overall you have a numeric deficiancy of 1/9th the total you could cram into yourself in SR3, you should also keep in mind that quite a lot of the Essence/Bio costs dropped in SR4 as well. You may well find that on comparison, you can get more actual implants in with SR4, despite the apparent minor numerical lack.
Thanee
QUOTE (OneTrikPony @ Dec 24 2006, 02:12 PM)
Before I go kick my dog across the yard Can I suggest that the developers use some space in Augmentation to FIX THIS CRAP!

They did so already in the transition from SR3 to SR4, the new system is better than the old one. smile.gif

Bye
Thanee
toturi
QUOTE (OneTrikPony)
Saying that 7.99 points of implants is "still alot of implants" doesn't really molify my burgeoning hatred of 4th eddition. 7.99 is not the 9.0 points that I used to play with. I've been up for a couple of days now and I'm about to go on a screaming rant like I did in the FAQ thread. Don't worry dear moderators I have a new anger management system.

Before I go kick my dog across the yard Can I suggest that the developers use some space in Augmentation to FIX THIS CRAP!

BRB

Hopefully you'd get thrown into jail for animal abuse before Augmentation comes out then. And oh btw, congratulations, you are now the second person to riun Christmas after emo.
OneTrikPony
QUOTE
On the plus side, you no longer have to deal with the madness that is dealing with the BI system

Are you joking?

BI was essence +3 - (bioware cost) That subtraction stuff was really rough. NOT

Now when I develope a character it seems I have to recalculate the totals of bio or cyber each time I add a piece of gear. How is that better?

QUOTE
keep in mind that quite a lot of the Essence/Bio costs dropped in SR4 as well. You may well find that on comparison, you can get more actual implants in with SR4

Wrong.
Perhaps you're refereing to the entirely superfluous simrig or the headware radio that no longer exists or the one tenth point of essence you save on a datajack? Maybe you're talking about cyberlimbs which actualy have less capacity because now you have to enhance 3 atributes instead of 2. How about those sweet skill wires with their dandy new active skill rating caped at 4. Or the sweet deal you can get on inexpencive initiative ehnancers which are now incompatible with any other type of reaction enhancers.

Cyber ware is less capable almost across the board and now you have less essence space to use to make up for it. I haven't been able to successfully convert even ONE of my old characters to this new system. It's not one ninth of the capacity it's A FULL POINT OF ESSENCE gone with the wind's of change. Factor the eventual Deltaware into that.

QUOTE
They did so already in the transition from SR3 to SR4, the new system is better than the old one.

I'll have to assume you enjoy playing adepts.

The more I look at it the more the new system dissapoints me. It's not better it's just STUPID SIMPLE on the surface and messy underneath. I can't say I blame the dev's for trying to streamline. In the US we get dumber with every graduating class. It's not all bad. Not having to worry about program memory is nice but wouldn't you like to see stuff like a Concealability Column in the gear sections? Wouldn't it be nice to have some reference for cargo load and seating in your vehicles regardless of how arbitrary it happens to be? Sure decking and rigging used different rule sets but by the time whe had versions of 3.5(revised) they were working pretty well and everyone was on the same page. Wouldn't it be nice to calculate how many implants you can have by simple subtraction?
OneTrikPony
It was the damned christians who ruined christmas. It used to be just Yule and some skinny norse guy who smacked kids for screwing up cyberware.

I'm in utah I can't get in trouble for animal abuse unless a pentagram is involved. Nerfing cyber makes me really angry, it's either kick the dog or beat the wife. When the FAQ came out I threw my Tolkien set through the wall. I hate patching drywall.
Serbitar
Bioware SR4 >> Bioware SR3. (I think its even too good compared to cyber)
Sams got much more powerfull. Adepts are the losers at the moment, except for having high dice numbers in skills.

Things like wall running are much too weak (Only 4 meters on average with really high values).
Thanee
QUOTE (OneTrikPony @ Dec 24 2006, 03:47 PM)
I'll have to assume you enjoy playing adepts.

Dunno, havn't played one yet in SR4; from playing around with the character generation, I like the cyber-side better.

Adepts are among the weaker archetypes in SR4, IMHO.

QUOTE
The more I look at it the more the new system dissapoints me. It's not better it's just STUPID SIMPLE on the surface and messy underneath.


What's messy there?

QUOTE
I can't say I blame the dev's for trying to streamline. In the US we get dumber with every graduating class. It's not all bad. Not having to worry about program memory is nice...


You still have that to a degree with system loads. And memory really shouldn't be a practical limit. Even today it isn't really one anymore.

QUOTE
...but wouldn't you like to see stuff like a Concealability Column in the gear sections?


Well, the gear section could need a column or two more, yeah, like weight, but it's not like that would turn a great game into a bad one. Would have been nice, but hardly necessary. smile.gif

QUOTE
Wouldn't it be nice to have some reference for cargo load and seating in your vehicles regardless of how arbitrary it happens to be? Sure decking and rigging used different rule sets but by the time whe had versions of 3.5(revised) they were working pretty well and everyone was on the same page.


I really like what they did with SR4 (in fact, its core is quite similar to what I did to SR2 already with my extensive house rules; I always disliked the silly target number modifers in SR and how they totally messed up any probabilities behind the rolls, and changed those to a fixed TN variable dice number system several years ago already).

It has some problems still, sure, it's certainly not perfect, but what system is?

It works really well. The results you get are pretty close to what you would expect. It's smooth, fast-playing, and still complex enough.

QUOTE
Wouldn't it be nice to calculate how many implants you can have by simple subtraction?


It is simple. Add up two numbers, multiply the lower one with 1/2.


Maybe it's not for you. If you don't like the new system, noone forces you to use it. smile.gif
If you havn't really tried it yet, I would give it a chance, though. smile.gif
And always remember... different =/= bad.

Bye
Thanee
Faelan
Do I think some things are wrong with cyberware? Sure. I do not understand why you think making it more balanced is nerfing it. The fact of the matter is the adepts and mages you so like to compare cyber to are karma sinks. They have to dump karma to progress, and a very slow progression it is. A cybertank spends nuyen. Every game I have ever played in or GM'ed cash was a lot easier to come by than karma. So now you run into the brick wall of no more advancement faster as a cybertank. Well what is wrong with that? You spent a shitload of money, you got there quickly, and can go no further. Sorry. Cyber has always struck me as a supplementary item in Shadowrun. If you wanted full conversion borgs you played Cyberpunk 2020. When you look at the whole backstory/metaplot of Shadowrun it is not just about the tech it is equally about the magic. As it stands Mages and Adepts have no technical limit, but have fun paying through the nose for everything.

Another thing why should something you pay for with money be as good as something paid for with karma? I just want to hear why you seem to think it should.

Personally I feel for you because you do hit that point of no advancement, and it always sucks when a character can go no further, but thats what houserules are for. I seriously doubt that Augmentation is going to seriously diverge from the rules set forth in the core book, so instead of throwing things through drywall draft your own rules and use them for your game. No one will fault you.
ruknabard
I'm going to have to agree that I think the new bio/cyber essence rules are much better.

The decrease in overall essence is, I feel, balanced by lower essence costs for much of the ware. Additionally, Since Bioware has become more popular, you can have a Bio heavy/ Cyber lite character just as easy as you could have a Cyber heavy/ bio lite charater and still feel like the system is in balance.

Please, if you really dislike the system so much, why don't you provide an alternative? The SR core book frequently promotes the players and GM to tailor the game to suit their needs. I think that being creative in this situtation is a lot better than just being angry and abusing small defenseless animals.
OneTrikPony
QUOTE
Bioware SR4 >> Bioware SR3

Now that I'm sure is a joke. biggrin.gif
Which bioware is better? I understand that the essence cost for some bioware in SR4 is 50% - 70% of the BioIndex value of SR3 ware. THAT'S THE POINT bioware didn't cost any essence in SR3 you could have 9 points of bioware--9 whole points of Bioware--with none of the irritating side effects like immediate death form lack of essence.

Some of the ware has been changed. We all know about the synaptic accelerator; we have a different initiative system so it doesn't directly compair but most people agree that it's better in SR4. What about the Adrenal pump, Symbiots, Ortho skin, and Enhanced Articulation? Nerfed. I'm thankfull that there is now Bioware in the BBB. (Initiation is also now in the BBB.) Also account for the fact that less bioware is available at chargen due to availability changes.
QUOTE
QUOTE
The more I look at it the more the new system dissapoints me. It's not better it's just STUPID SIMPLE on the surface and messy underneath.

What's messy there?

and
QUOTE
QUOTE
Wouldn't it be nice to calculate how many implants you can have by simple subtraction?

It is simple. Add up two numbers, multiply the lower one with 1/2.

It's not simple. I don't know anyone who plays cyber characters who walks through a character build like that. When you have built an adept did you spend 65 karma for 6 points of magic and then only load him out with 4 power points worth of adept powers. A player would only do that if he were dumb or lazy. When I build a cyber character my final essence target is < 0.5, saving essence for later just gets characters killed.

So now I install 3 points of bioware which is usually the max that I can afford.
Then I install 3 points of cyber.
but then I devide that in half which leaves me a point of essence left to play with
So I install some more cyber
Which means that I devide the bio in half and cyber counts at full rate
which means that now I have less essence to work with than I thought.
So I have to move some bio around, maybe trade Dermal for Ortho or viseversa, maybe rethink my character.
Which means that I recalulate both sides
which leaves me with some portion of essence left...
So I've recalculated essence 6 damed times before I've got the character where I want.
4 years ago I could build a Streetsam in my head while I was going to sleep and type him up in the morning. I thought I was getting to that point in SR4 until I revisited the 1/2 essence rule and now I have to rebuild 18 NPC's and my future plans for my 3 PC's are fucked.

QUOTE
Maybe it's not for you. If you don't like the new system, noone forces you to use it.
If you havn't really tried it yet, I would give it a chance, though.
Maybe you havn't noticed but SR3 is no longer supported. I can only run Blood in the Boardrooom so many times. I've got the first 6 adventures of my campain mapped with Legwork tables and most of the art finished. I'm lucky enough to have found a GM who will let me play in his SR4 game. (He still resorts to some SR3 rules to cover stuff that is complete nonsense in SR4, like healing. I don't know anyone in northern utah who still plays SR3. So technicaly you're right. No one forces me to use SR4 I could always go back to some D20 monster manual bullshit.

And Faelan ork.gif
I resent strongly your implication that I have ever played CP2020, or a borg, I am not joking I am actually offended. It seems to me that you fail to grasp
the 1000% ¥ markup of delta ware,
the fact that there are 4 times as many published initiatory groups as there are Delta clinics,
the concept that a mage can self initiate as well as create his own foci
A mundane cannot self install his own deltaware nor build his own deltaware
the concept that In game advancement of Powers is one of the most important parts of roleplay
the certainty of a hard cap on power advancemnt of a cyber character in published material
The total lack of any cap or limitation on power advancment of a magic character in shadowrun.
I further resent your implication that powers payed for with ¥ should not be as good as powers paid for with Karma given equivelant game time to acrue.
I think when you call cyberware a "supplimentary" item in our CYBERPUNK game where "man meet magic AND machine" you tell me everything I need to know about you.

I dub thee MAGE TWINK EXTRORDINARE, please don't ever talk to me again. [edit] Sorry that was me being an ass again. I'm still calling you mage twink extrordiaire but I have an idea that you're pretty good at getting the most out of your mage. Faelan, with your permission I'll PM you directly when I run up against some of the finer points of magic character development.

[edit] @ ruknabard and Synner and Adam and Mods
After the FAQ came out and I blew up last time I really tried hard to write something I could submit for Augmented before the Dec 11 deadline. I know all the writing had been assigned but I felt semi-invited to make my ideas available incase anyone wanted to use them, or at least put my effort where my big mouth is. I worked on it for three nights and took half a day off work. I missed that boat. It was too little tallent too late in the game for me to get anything writen that didn't embarass me. This even after I decided to limit my submission to expansions of cyberlimbs. You only have to read this tread to figure out that I can barely spell, let alone grasp the broader stylistic points of writing such as knowing when to end a sentance before it becomes a monstrosity that threatens to eat my paragraph. I produced about 10 pages of garbage that made Strunk and White sob, and got me in a fight with my wife when I asked her to edit for me. I'm not just falling back on my lack of art either. I found it difficult not to push ideas that were on the boundary of contradicting the BBB. I also tend to violate the simplicity and streamlinging of the SR4 rules framework with complex rules that mostly serve to highlight flavor at the expence of game play.

For instance; I've always thought that a character with a cyber torso ought to be able to exceed the Augmented Racial Maximum for attributes if he chose to spend his limb capacity on enough enhancements. That's probably not a good idea, but it makes perfect sence to me that the machine wouldn't have bilogical limitations.

I wanted to add rules for cyberlimb mainenance and damage. At the most streamlined these rules required extra book keeping. The writing was so heavy with caveats and clauses it looked like a herd of Parentheses being chased by semicolons. The secton would have reqired at least 1 italicized example text that would have taken up a quarter column.

I have occaisionaly posted ideas for house rules on the boards search for "I fixed cyberlimbs" to find my begining ideas for that problem.

It's not that I havn't tried, I just havn't succeded.
Fortune
I'm out! The personal attacks are more than I want to deal with on Christmas Day.
Marmot
The mechanics of Shadowrun on the Internets are SERIOUS (dog-kick-worthy) BUSINESS.
FrankTrollman
QUOTE
It's not one ninth of the capacity it's A FULL POINT OF ESSENCE gone with the wind's of change. Factor the eventual Deltaware into that.


OK.

Old System: 5.99 Essence worth of Cyberware (all delta) and 3 pointsof Bioware (All Cultured) = 11.99 points of Cyberware and 4.0 points of Bioware. That's 15.99 points total, as long as none of the Bioware you got started Cultured.

New System: 4.0 Essence of Cyberware (All Delta) and 3.99 points of Bioware (all Delta) = 8.0 points of Cyberware and 7.99 points of Bioware. That's 15.99 points total, and you can include cultured bioware in that, and you don't have to pay for routers any more and several items are somewhat cheaper than they were in the past on top of that.

So the high end is better. Mathematically you have the same number of points of total stuff, and a bunch of items are slightly to extremely cheaper. I don't even understand where your complaint is coming from unless it's a fundamental unwillingness to do basic math or fully read the current system.

The SR4 system has less rules to keep track of, and for cybersamurai that's a good thing. A low Essence doesn't penalize your social rolls, a pile of bioware doesn't raise your healing TNs, you aren't arbitrarily prevented from getting higher grades of many pieces of ware and so on. Yeah the numbers were slihtly cranked down - but since the limitations on cost reduction were also removed, that just mens that you have less penalties to magical healing - not that you have less equipment in your body.

-Frank
Charon
I kinda thought the street sam was cramming more gadgets than ever based on firt campaign so far.

That's hardly scientific of course. Still, the amount of enhancements per BP the Street Sam crammed in his build struck me as rather impressive.

For example, for .3 essence (capacity 8 ) he got cyber eyes with smartlink, low light, flare compensation and thermo. Plus he has the image link and eye recording system (essentially a camera as per SR3 rules) thrown in for free! And the wireless connection option (Which is usually turned off for securit reason but can sometime be incredibly useful).

In SR3 it would have cost him 1.5 essence if memory serve (Have my M&M on hand but not my SR3 core) without accounting for wireless connectivity.

At any rate, SR3 eyes had a limit of 1.2 essence worth of modification in them (as per M&M) and a SR4 sam routinely explode that limit since just by buying cybereyes he gets what used to be .6 essence of mods for free so he's already halfway there.

He also casually bought himself an adrenal pump. Used to be 1.25 bio index but it just cost him .75 essence.

And during game he bought Muscle toner for just .2 essence instead of .4 bio index.

Next on the list, hearing modification. With also the possibility to cram more mods per essence point than ever before.

Needless to say the player is quite happy with the amount of power he has been able to cram in his PC. Meanwhile the piece of techs that cost as much essence as they used to are often more worthwile then they were in SR3. I'm thinking of wired 2 which has a bigger impact on performance than it used two (The 3 passes are guaranteed AND it helps dodging) so they are worth their cost more than ever.
A lot of this stuff is also more affordable.

Sure the pay per mission has dropped, but unless the GM is very cheap, it hasn't dropped as much as the price for most of the high end equipment. 100k instead of 500k for wired 3, for example. Have the average paycheck dropped by 80%? In most campaign, no.

Obviously I wonder about the rules for replacing cyber with new stuff but we didn't have those either in SR3 when it started so I'm patiently waiting for augmentations.
Thanee
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
...a pile of bioware doesn't raise your healing TNs...

Don't the low Essence penalties apply to all healing rolls? Just magical healing?

Bye
Thanee
Charon
QUOTE (Thanee @ Dec 24 2006, 03:33 PM)
QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Dec 24 2006, 09:15 PM)
...a pile of bioware doesn't raise your healing TNs...

Don't the low Essence penalties apply to all healing rolls? Just magical healing?

Bye
Thanee

Yes, just to magical healing. If anything, it's the magicians and adepts who have a penalty to normal healing (table p.244) in the sense that there is a -2 to dice pool for medecine or first aid test made on them.
Thanee
Nice. I must have read that wrong then. Thanks! smile.gif

Bye
Thanee
Thanee
QUOTE (OneTrikPony)
Maybe you havn't noticed but SR3 is no longer supported.

Certainly. But there is still a fanbase out there.

QUOTE
I can only run Blood in the Boardrooom so many times. I've got the first 6 adventures of my campain mapped with Legwork tables and most of the art finished. I'm lucky enough to have found a GM who will let me play in his SR4 game. (He still resorts to some SR3 rules to cover stuff that is complete nonsense in SR4, like healing. I don't know anyone in northern utah who still plays SR3. So technicaly you're right. No one forces me to use SR4 I could always go back to some D20 monster manual bullshit.


Of course, if you don't have others who prefer SR3 in your vincinity, that doesn't really help. smile.gif

Bye
Thanee
Squinky
Charon, does that sammy player do okay with that adrenal pump? Not to join in on the arguement against sammys power here, but it just seems.....dangerous.

With the stun a person would rack up, I can see it being the death of a character. Did you guys adapt those rules or are they working out okay?
Serbitar
Adrenaline pump is severely broken.
Charon
QUOTE (Squinky @ Dec 24 2006, 05:37 PM)
With the stun a person would rack up, I can see it being the death of a character. Did you guys adapt those rules or are they working out okay?

It's more like a life saver assuming you don't roll too low for duration.

When you need to activate it, raking up a few stun box in 3 round or so isn't much of a concern. Because...

there is a horde of madmen shooting at you with assault rifle! Help!

It just flat out increase you survival chance when you are in a tight spot. Just don't activate whenever a punk shoot at you (assuming you have good composure and can control it most of the time).

If you use it at the appropriate moment, the stun damage you suffer at the end of the effect is nothing compared to the damage you have avoided by :
  • Killing your opoonent faster due to increased Agility (and perhaps strenght)
  • Dodging attacks better due to increase reaction
  • Resisting spell better due to higher willpower
  • Not falling unconscious immediately when your stun meter overflows.
A rational use of the adrenal pump means that you don't have to fear falling unconscious after the duration of the pump is over because you would have likely been killed/knocked out/defeated anyway if you hadn't activated it.

PS : That player also appreciate stimulant patches.
toturi
QUOTE (Fortune)
I'm out! The personal attacks are more than I want to deal with on Christmas Day.

See my post:
QUOTE
And oh btw, congratulations, you are now the second person to riun Christmas after emo.
Faelan
You know what OTP I'll respond to you when I calm down. Your response was entirely uncalled for. For your information I am on your side, which is why in my game I did limit Mages.

Regardless Shadowrun is Urban Fantasy. Cyberpunk 2020 (which for some unknown reason you have issues with) is the only real cyberpunk game out there that I know of. So please do shove your personal issues where the sun don't shine. I offered you nothing but respect and instead you decide to shit on the discussion which says exactly one thing to me.
Squinky
Heh. Charon, I agree with what you say, and I love the idea of an adrenaline pump, but can still see it killing a persons character easily. I've posted about it before, but I am glad to hear that you and your group are doing well with it. Thanks for answering my question.
Adarael
Loathe as I am to contribute to this madness, since I am willing to state categorically that I agree with Frank that OneTrik must be unwilling to do math or read the setting... please witness the following:

Basic Fact #1:
Cramming yourself with ten tons of cyberware and then adding bioware on top of that invariably leads to overstress on the bioware. Regardless of the numberical amounts you can cram in based on BI, doing so when you are at sub-1 essence (excepting certain VERY particular builds) will almost always result in all bioware being at a state of 'light stress' at all times.

Basic Fact #2
SR3:
Dermal Plating 3: 1.5 Essence
Obvious Cyberarm, 6 points strength enhancement: 2.2 Essence
VCR 3, 5 Essence.
Titanium Bone Lacing: 2.25 Essence
Total cost without Deltaware? 10.95 essence, supposing your GM has let you break the rules and have both a VCR and Wired Reflexes - something explicitly prohibited. Otherwise, 5.95 Essence.
Net result: Cyberzombification or 'no space for other implants without upgrading'.

SR4:
Dermal Plating 3: 1.5 Essence
Obvious Cyberarm, 6 points strength enhancement: 1 Essence
Control Rig: .5 Essence
Titanium Bone Lacing: 1.5 Essence
Total cost: 4.5 essence.
Net result: Room to grow before upgrades, and a ton of other essence-free upgrades to the arm.

So tell me again how you've been shafted? You can harp on the Control Rig, if you like, and claim it's nowhere near as robust as the old-school VCR... And you're right.
Until you recognize that your commlink's upgrades ALSO add to rigging, and old school cyberdecks didn't.

This argument is so done it smells like fresh baked bread.
Jaid
you forgot wired reflexes in your SR4 portion of the comparison.
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (Jaid)
you forgot wired reflexes in your SR4 portion of the comparison.

Here, I'll make it. For less nuyen than it takes to get a set of Wired 3 in SR3 you can get a set of Wired III at Beta Grade and now the Reflex Trigger is free. Nevertheless, this reduction in cost by 100,000 nuyen.gif and 1.8 Essence is bullshit, because noone in their right mind would purchase that when for less than half the cost of SR3 Wired III you can get a Synaptic Booster III that costs only 1.5 Essence.

Wired Reflexes has improved greatly, falling in price to a mere 100,000 nuyen.gif and coming bundled with a free Reflex Trigger. But Synaptic Accelerator technology has advanced even more and is so crazy much better that it's not even worth talking about.

Yes, at the top end you can now have 4 Initiative Passes on less than a single expended Essence Point. The fact that you might have less Essence Points to spend (hell, the cyberzombie rules haven't even been published yet!) is essentially meaningless in the fact of the fact that it now costs seriously less than a third of what it used to to maximize one's actions per turn (and you get more actions per turn when you do that).

-Frank
SL James
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
The fact that you might have less Essence Points to spend (hell, the cyberzombie rules haven't even been published yet!) is essentially meaningless

So that is how trolls get their cyberlimb stats maxed.
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (SL James)
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
The fact that you might have less Essence Points to spend (hell, the cyberzombie rules haven't even been published yet!) is essentially meaningless

So that is how trolls get their cyberlimb stats maxed.

No. Trolls get the attributes in their cyberlimbs maxxed by pointing out to the game master how completely ridiculous and unsalvageable the cyberlimb capacity rules are in the basic book and throwing the whole thing out with the bathwater because it's crap.

And then, when you have a game where you flat ignore the capacity limits of cyberlimbs completely, you just more on and give a Troll a maximized strength in their cyberlimb.

Honestly, I have never understood the hardon that the Shadworun rules had for making Strength hard to afford in cyberlimbs. It's just strength. You can drive a forklift if it's really a problem. Hydrolics today can lift things that are well beyond the strength limits of any living organism, and it really doesn't destabilize the world.

-Frank
coyote6
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
Honestly, I have never understood the hardon that the Shadworun rules had for making Strength hard to afford in cyberlimbs. It's just strength.

I blame bows. They don't want archers to do more base damage than assault cannons.
Jaid
QUOTE (coyote6)
QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Dec 25 2006, 07:36 PM)
Honestly, I have never understood the hardon that the Shadworun rules had for making Strength hard to afford in cyberlimbs. It's just strength.

I blame bows. They don't want archers to do more base damage than assault cannons.

too late. way too late.
Faelan
I think the simplest thing to do with cyberlimbs is make the base attributes for the limb equal to that of the character. A higher rating than what the character normally has is going to cost nuyen. This sort of established a baseline minimum. Or you can have limbs equal to racial minimums whatever floats your boat. Having a flat 3 across the board whether it is an elf arm or troll arm makes no sense.

Seeing as how I am calm now I retract my little semi obscenity in regards to OTP. It was late and I was pissed.

Anyway in answer to his little tirade, the Mage Twink that I am supposedly, thinks mages are simlpy overpowered in the sense of the eventual. If you are going to institute caps they need to be universal. An attribute cap on every attribute except magic does in fact break the system. Of course unlimited attributes is not an option. Unlimited skills are not really either, simply because if I wanted players rolling 40-50 dice at a time we would bust out Champions and have Magnesium Lad and Fecal Man duke it out. Raising skill limits, and putting a hard cap on initiation grade has opened up the utility of mundanes in my campaign, provided mundane players with a karma sink (higher skills), and eliminated the Great Dragons, Immortal Elves are unbeatable syndrome. Sorry everyone in my campaign can die and it won't require tac nukes.

Anyway OTP maybe you misread me, or maybe you should just calm down. I have been playing (10%), GMing (90%) games for the past 27 years, to say I have tried most games at least once is probably a fair statement. The original version of cyberpunk was actually quite good, 2020 threw some issues mechanically into it and was overall an inferior protect. However no matter which way you cut it if you want cyber dominance you should be playing a cyberpunk game. Shadowrun has always been urban fantasy, which is not cyberpunk. Elves, Trolls, Dwarves, Orcs, Paranormal critters do not appear in cyberpunk except as some freak genetic experiment, or some LOTR Poser Gang. They do however appear in Urban Fantasy which also has magic. In this kind of setting magic usually has an edge that technology cannot make up for, and that is the case here. For my campaigns and my Shadowrun the potentially unlimited disparity does not work. This is why I limit mages, adepts in my campaign. I feel that at the high end they do deserve to be better than a mundane, just not a God vs. Roach situation.

Regardless my comment on Cyberpunk 2020 was in no way meant to be an insult just a cold logical comment based on what your posts seem to indicate you want. In my mind it was lots of metal and a couple of meat bits left over. Full conversion borgs are just that.

Mage Twink out. cool.gif
DireRadiant
This reminds me of comparing 1860 US Dollars to 2007 US Dollars. Yes, they are still dollars. But wow, what you can buy, and the value that represents is entirely contextual. And on top of it all, neither is legal currency in the relavant periods.
FrankTrollman
QUOTE
Anyway in answer to his little tirade, the Mage Twink that I am supposedly, thinks mages are simlpy overpowered in the sense of the eventual.


But does the eventual ever happen?

I've been running a game since SR4 came out, and the magicians haven't left anyone in the dust yet. The team Mystic Adept has a Magic Attribute of 10 and he still doesn't especially overshadow the team Hacker/Street Sam in combat or noncombat situations.

In a theoretical sense, a Street Samurai will eventually run out of things she can buy. She won't have any more gear she can fit in her body, her attributes will be maximized, and her skills will hit the ceiling. The Magician won't. Heck, this won't happen to Technomancers either. But it won't happen for a long time.

As things currently stand, I have a house rule that allows players to purchase up their non-magic attributes and skills past the cap. But not one single person has done it yet. It just hasn't been necessary.

---

I believe that ultimately Shadowrun is going to have to institute a rule allowing people to purchase things in excess of limits. But that rule is not needed yet because people still have stuff to buy and the magicians haven't seen the dividend of their uncapped status.

-Frank
Faelan
For me it is not so much the eventual as an overall view of the world. Sorry Harlequin being able to do anything he wants just does not compute in my gaming style. I know give it stats and it can be killed, but so what. No NPC should ever operate under a different set of rules from a PC. So I need to have limits for my NPC's so that I can build a more believable setting for my PC's to interact with. As far as the eventual well I did have a 4 day a week three year Earthdawn game and a similar Mage the Ascension game, and both times they wound up there. Every game has limits, I like to be prepared and above all fair. Saying to one player that he has no limits, and another that he could conceivably hit his, just does not fly for me, YMMV though.
OneTrikPony
QUOTE
New System: 4.0 Essence of Cyberware (All Delta) and 3.99 points of Bioware (all Delta) = 8.0 points of Cyberware and 7.99 points of Bioware. That's 15.99 points total, and you can include cultured bioware in that, and you don't have to pay for routers any more and several items are somewhat cheaper than they were in the past on top of that.

So the high end is better. Mathematically you have the same number of points of total stuff, and a bunch of items are slightly to extremely cheaper. I don't even understand where your complaint is coming from unless it's a fundamental unwillingness to do basic math or fully read the current system.

The SR4 system has less rules to keep track of, and for cybersamurai that's a good thing.

smile.gif Did you just argue that its cheaper to pay 1000% for Delta Bioware? How exactly does that make the high end better? Does this mean that you now undertstand that a character can no longer have 8.9 points of implants at chargen? Why do you question my willingness to do math or read? I find that ironic. I argued in the FAQ thread that we have less essence capacity in sr4 then we had essence index + bioindex in SR3 because bioware costs essence now. You told my my argument was wrong. I'm not quick but I did the math and made builds for several weeks and it turns out I was right. (high end scenario and mutiple millions of ¥¥ in resources not withstanding; other posters in this thread have supported my argument.) IIRC you, Frank, are a champion of streamlineing. My point about the math is not that its hard just that it's more difficult than it used to be. The rules might be more concise but their aplication is less simple.


QUOTE
Basic Fact #2
SR3:
Dermal Plating 3: 1.5 Essence
Obvious Cyberarm, 6 points strength enhancement: 2.2 Essence
VCR 3, 5 Essence.
Titanium Bone Lacing: 2.25 Essence
Total cost without Deltaware? 10.95 essence, supposing your GM has let you break the rules and have both a VCR and Wired Reflexes - something explicitly prohibited. Otherwise, 5.95 Essence.
Net result: Cyberzombification or 'no space for other implants without upgrading'.

SR4:
Dermal Plating 3: 1.5 Essence
Obvious Cyberarm, 6 points strength enhancement: 1 Essence
Control Rig: .5 Essence
Titanium Bone Lacing: 1.5 Essence
Total cost: 4.5 essence.
Net result: Room to grow before upgrades, and a ton of other essence-free upgrades to the arm.

Adareal your stat comparison is nonsense. (I say that with good will and no desparagment on your person. It's simply a fact, not a personal attack.)
You cannot have 6 points of strength enhancement in an SR4 cyberlimb. You can have 6 points of strength TOTAL and the limb will cost 1 essence. However you could instal a torso to support that arm and then enhance strength by 6 points. The assembly would cost 2.5 points of essence. Leaving rather less room to improve than one might have thought. smile.gif

In SR3 you could have 6 points of strength enhancement on a limb without a cybertorso. If you were instead thinking about limbs with strength 6 total you should remember that the first 3 points of enhancement cost neither essence nor capacity in the limb. This kind of tends to reverse the results of your example.

I find it delicious that you would make such a mistake in the same post where you state; "OneTrik must be unwilling to do math or read the setting." That's just YUMMY! smile.gif

QUOTE
Cramming yourself with ten tons of cyberware and then adding bioware on top of that invariably leads to overstress on the bioware...You can harp on the Control Rig, if you like, and claim it's nowhere near as robust as the old-school VCR... And you're right.
Until you recognize that your commlink's upgrades ALSO add to rigging, and old school cyberdecks didn't.

Biosystem overstress was never difficult to avoid. I have no Idea what you were talking about. I have never harped on the control rig in SR4. But since you bring it up; has anyone else noticed that the insane levels of vehicle initiative are no longer posible? Not only do you have to depend on Hot Sim VR comlink to give you the now maximum 3 IP but your comlink determins your reacition and the VCR usd to give you a +2 to default to reaction for vehicle skills. That was a pretty awesome bonus because it ment tha you could automaticly drive anything that was rigged. I have no Idea why they didn't write that into the control rig.

QUOTE
Anyway in answer to his little tirade, the Mage Twink that I am supposedly, thinks mages are simlpy overpowered in the sense of the eventual. If you are going to institute caps they need to be universal. An attribute cap on every attribute except magic does in fact break the system.

With WILD AND HEARTFELT APPLAUSE, I agree. I am against hard caps in general but in a foundational mechanic such as Attributes I believe that it should be an all or none thing. I would be happier if there were even one or two very specific, extremely limited methods to exceed the augmented caps for mundane attributes published in Augmentation. Failing that I'd like to see caps on the magic attribute. (A a personal asside; That pretty much makes up for calling Cyber "supplementary" in the setting. Thankyou for clearing that up. Again I give you my appologies and I'm sorry I took out my frustration on you.)

QUOTE
As things currently stand, I have a house rule that allows players to purchase up their non-magic attributes and skills past the cap. But not one single person has done it yet. It just hasn't been necessary.
How does that work in your game? If your player had a human with natural 3 agility + 4 points of muscle toner, suprathyroid gland, and adrenal pump 1, how would it work if your player spent 12 karma to buy Agility 4?

In work that I was going to send to Synner and Fanpro I had an Idea about adding an availablity column to the Implant grades table. It would have said something like

Availability: Deltaware: +10 for example.

I had no idea how to approach analisis of what the availability modifyer should be for each grade of ware. My goal specificly was to establish in Concrete terms how dificult it would be to get these items instead of leaving it up the DM's translation of the setting. Dealing with the upper end of character advancement is better for the player if he knows what to shoot for.
toturi
OTP, you are wrong. Because this is SR4. Everything in the previous goes out the window. You are speaking of mundane/cybered and awakened as though they are the same from edition to edition. They are not. A SR3 cyber PC is diffirent from an SR4 cyber PC. The mechanics changed, the costs for cyber are different for a SR3 cyber mundane is different from that for a SR4 cyber mundane.

If you are saying that a SR4 cyber mundane is different than a SR3 cyber mundane, then I'd say that that is exactly the point.
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (OTP)
Does this mean that you now undertstand that a character can no longer have 8.9 points of implants at chargen?


YES!

That is exactly and completely the entire point. In 4th edition Shadowrun you don't have less stuff in your body, but you do spend less Essence/Bio Index to get it. The amount you can spend has been lowered to compensate.

So the only difference is that now you suffer smaller penalties for having a lot of cyberware than you used to.

Now admittedly, a 4th edition starting character has less stuff over all. The days of a starting Magician having 14 spells or a starting street sam having Wired 3 are over in the basic rules. The equipment that many high resources starting characters took for granted in SR3 are straight up outside the availability guidelines for a starting SR4 character. But if you wanted to play things on that level you'd just do it anyway. I honestly don't care.

But your basic complaint that the fucking implant number you write on your character sheet is smaller now is complete nonsense. Of course it's smaller, there was an executive decision to make it smaller. A rational complain might be based on the total implantable equipment being reduced - but that's straight up false.

Many pieces of ware were reduced in cost by 30-50% and the arbitrary halving rule makes the 6 points act like 8 even though you only get penalized for spending six points!

QUOTE
IIRC you, Frank, are a champion of streamlineing. My point about the math is not that its hard just that it's more difficult than it used to be.


No it isn't. It may well be more difficult than the way you used to play it, but there's no way in hell that it's more difficult than it used to be. You start with 6 and you subtract 100% of one number and 50% of another number. That's pretty simple. It is not, for example, subtracting 100% of one number and 100%, 0% or 50% of another number depending upon what you're doing while simultaneously having to juggle a half dozen stress effects.

Seriously, keeping track of your Essence, your Essence Cost, your Essence Index, your Bio Index, and your Stress Level is not more streamlined than keeping track of your Essence, your Essence Cost (Cyberware) and your Essence Cost (Bioware). It's really really not.

We've gotten rid of the entire thing of Bioindex and Toxin Power (alternatively known as the "Toxin Extractors are less than useless" rule), the rules on Bioindex and Healing, the clumsy cultured/normal distinction that made pricing bioware so confusing, and the inane rules about bioware counting as "non-augmented" for extra Karma screwing PCs.

If you want gear in your body, go get it. The Pain Editor costs half of what it used to. A Reflex Recorder costs 20-60% less and is incredibly better than ever. A Cerebral Booster is half the price and can be taken to the next level. If you're hurting in the pocketbook, remember that the Pain Editor is 1/3rd off the nuyen.gif, and the Cerebral Booster costs less than a fifth the nuyen.gif it used to.

On the Reaction end, maximizing your reaction costs less than a third of what it did in Essence and costs less than half of what it did in nuyen.gif

The complaint "The SR3 Essence Index is about 12.5% larger than the effective Essence that an SR4 characetr can spend" while [ii]true[/i] is also completely meaningless. This is seriously an advantage, not a penalty.

Characters in SR4 have less penalties to keep track of, they are penalized for less Essence expenditure, and they get more benefits from their 'ware.

On every level, filling your body with gear is better than it has ever been.

---

Except Cyberlimbs, which have always sucked monkey butt in every edition and are still crap. I don't know what that's about. Cyberlimbs shouldn't even have capacity limitations.

-Frank
Ryu
What Frank said. I was very pleased with the new cyberware when I read about the new cybereyes and -ears. AND incidentially the new smartlink. And the affordable higher-grade initiative enhancers. Thats saving so much essence that I´ve got a higher starting value than before. AND the ingame effect of the ware is higher - On the variable TN scale, one more dice offered little increases on the chance of success.

Cyberlimbs DO suck. Appart from higher base attributes I´d like to see a mechanism for incorporating other technical devices, ie a hologram projector.
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